A while back I got a phone call from Charter Communications, my cable company. It was a sales guy telling me that I could lock-in a great rate for more services than I currently had at less money than I was currently paying! "Wow! How can you do that?" I asked. "You're a good customer, and we want to keep you!" they said. "But what's the catch? How can I get more for less?" I asked. "No catch!" they said... "You just have to agree to a two-year contract!" I kept asking questions but, at every turn I was assured that my total bill would be less money.
Confident I had covered all the bases, I said "Sign me up!"
It ended up not being true, of course.
The first time I called because my bill was higher, I was told the increase was temporary because I made a change in the middle of a billing cycle. Today when I called a second time because my latest charge was still higher than I had been paying, they said the amount was correct. They didn't give a crap that I was promised something different. The situation was all my fault, and if I wanted to change my services, I'd have to pay $190 to get out of my contract or just suck it up and pay the extra $40 a month that I had "agreed" to.
They obviously don't know me very well. This wasn't some case of "buyer's remorse" over an agreement I made ten months ago and suddenly had second-thoughts over. This was a second complaint over an agreement I just made. I was LIED to. Twice. So here was MY plan...
I may have to pay $190 to get out of the contract of lies Charter had trapped me into... but they would be the ones paying for it. And I started my dissatisfaction campaign by posting this on Twitter:
Which was almost immediately replied to by a Charter Cable Twitter rep...
And... problem solved. Everything was fixed.
This was astounding. Somebody at Charter actually gets it. Somebody at Charter knows the value of customer service. Somebody at Charter understands that righting a wrong and keeping a customer happy is in the company's best interest. How? Let's take a look at my value as a customer to Charter Communications from the perspective of PHONE support vs. TWITTER support...
| MY CUSTOMER VALUE... CHARTER PHONE SUPPORT | MY CUSTOMER VALUE... CHARTER TWITTER SUPPORT |
|
| AFTER ONE YEAR | $190 | $1,529.16 |
| AFTER TWO YEARS | $190 | $3,058.32 |
| AFTER THREE YEARS | $190 | $4,587.48 |
| AFTER FOUR YEARS | $190 | $6,116.64 |
| AFTER FIVE YEARS | $190 | $7,645.80 |
The customer service agent in phone support would have gotten the $190 early termination fee... and nothing more. Ever. On top of that, they would have had a very unhappy ex-customer who would spend their every waking hour thinking up ways of telling everybody and anybody how they had been lied to and cheated by their company.
The customer service agent on Twitter, however, now has a happy customer worth thousands of dollars to their bottom line over the next several years.
That's a $190 one-time payment vs. $1,529.16... ANNUALLY.
How do companies like this stay in business when parts of their organization don't understand the long-time value of a customer? All they see is policy regardless of consequence. They don't care what promises were made, they only care about what excuses they can make as to why they were made. They don't care about solving a problem, they only care about passing blame as to who is responsible for it.
I was told my bill would be less than I was paying.
And, in the end, it wasn't even the money that was important to me. It was the principle.
I'm not some whack-job trying to weasel my way out of an agreement I made. I'm a customer who was made a promise that was not kept. Every attempt to rectify the situation was met with more broken promises or outright defiance. Until I posted a complaint to Twitter and somebody at Charter saw it and decided my value as a customer was worth saving. And it's refreshing to know that somebody at Charter gives a crap about saving their revenue stream.
Because it only takes 131 customers.
Saving just 131 customers like me over a 5-year period is worth over a MILLION DOLLARS to Charter Communications. With money like that at stake, it's just a pity that George Vick isn't in charge of all customer service at Charter.
Because after what I've been through today with their phone "support," I have to seriously question whether the company will even be around in five years.
UPDATE: For those who asked, the problem was solved by removing all the extra "premium" channels and taking me back to the package I used to have, which is fine by me. I never cared about having the extra channels, and the only reason I added them in the first place was because I was told my monthly charge would be less money than I was currently paying (with two-year contract). Am I happy that Charter has a sales force which lies as a matter of policy? No. But I otherwise like the service I had at the price I was paying, so getting me back to where I was at is all that matters to me.
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So what went wrong? Is this just their policy to say one thing and do another or did someone not enter something properly along the way? What was the explanation that was given to you when it was fixed?
Stuff like that really gets my back up, unless I got a clear explanation of what went wrong and that it wasn’t just how they do things hoping I wouldn’t be a squeaky wheel… I’d be out like yesterday’s news.
Did you get the lower price you were promised or did they put you back to the old arrangement?
It sounds to me like they should put George Vick in charge of the whole company, not just customer services.
I had the same thing happen to me with Comcast.
I called about an issue we were having one day. Nothing major, but while they had me on the phone they told me they could upgrade my internet speed for free. All I had to do was reboot our modem. I did that. I didn’t notice any huge increase in speed, but whatever.
I use their autopay feature and our bills fluctuate based on how many movies we purchase from On Demand. I wasn’t paying attention to the individual charges. We have a move coming up and will incur costs for that so to save money, we aren’t purchasing as many movies. But our bill still seemed higher so I finally went and looked and guess what? That FREE internet speed upgrade was costing me $10 a month. It was listed kinda hidden in the bill as “Internet Blast”. To say I was pissed was an understatement.
I found a feedback email and let them know how unhappy I was about telling me I was getting a FREE upgrade that was actually $10 per month and I demanded a refund and removal of this “upgrade” (since we didn’t notice any change).
I got a call the next day (on a Saturday) from a senior CS rep. She not only refunded all the $10 charges, but added enough credit on my account to cover the transfer and connection fees when we move.
It really makes you wonder how many people these companies dupe into thinking they’re getting something for free and never notice they aren’t.. just like me. I was a fool for not checking my bill each month. THAT won’t happen again.
Wow, good for you mate. I love stories like this, everyone loves a happy ending.
That’s business for you…what you went through resembles our nations politics and corporate culture to burn the backs of those that keep them going…can we expect honesty when everything is a giant lie for instant profit to be displayed on a quarterly evaluation?
Of course they don’t get it…they are chasing this weeks goals and ignoring long term growths collapse on moral dissatisfaction. It’s so ridiculous…we’ve canceled nearly everything because of that behavior and must say it’s given us more family time with our children.
Sorry, Dave, but the Twitter rep was NOT in any way concerned with customer service. He was concerned only with damage control. If he, and by extension his employer, had any concern in doing right be their constomers, they would provide the phone staff with the support and empowerment to do the same things Mr. Twitter did from the outset. It’s not rocket science, it’s training policy. If the Twitter rep can be trained in a customer service perspective, so too can the phone staff. So why aren’t they? So far, they have no incentive. Many, perhaps most of their customers (and here I’m thinking of my mom and other elderly who know not blogs/twitter/facebook) feel trapped into paying despite the out-and-out fraud. This is lucrative enough to keep their policies on customer service from changing. Nice that they have damage control in situations such as yours, but I susptect the majority of their customers will never benefit from it.
Good for you – and Charter!
I recently ordered my mom some flowers for her birthday. I paid extra to have them delivered within 4 hours (I was worried she’d leave work for some reason). What I ordered for her is NOT what was delivered, and they were a half hour late! I bitched and moaned and finally got *some* satisfaction, but I’m not gonna be using FloristExpress (part of ProFlowers) again. I think florists are assholes who figure we’ll never see what was delivered, so they can do what they want. Pisses me off.
Little known fact: Although George Vick is in charge of Charter’s Twitter support, Michael Vick runs the Charter Cable phone support.
Well done! If social media has ONE plus side worthy of negating the crap, it’s that the customer now has some real, weildable power.
A Twitter rep came to the rescue. Love to hear the details on these customer service cases. Love it even more when it all gets resolved.
Dave Simmer II = the awesome!
Great story.
Hello David,
My name is Eric Ketzer. I am George’s Manager. I just wanted to take a moment and apologize again for the misinformation that was provided when you first called in. While I am glad George was able to fix this situation, it should have never happened. I will ensure the Agent that spoke to you is coached to prevent this from happening in the future.
If you ever need anything, as you now know, just @Charter and we will be happy to help.
Have a great weekend, Eric
Eric Ketzer
Charter
Social Media Communications Manager
I wish we had more competition where we live. It’s basically Comcast or the Dish, and that’s it. We can’t get Charter yet and are supposedly getting AT&T’s UVerse (or whatever it’s called) soon, but don’t have it yet. Competition makes companies behave better, generally (which is why I HATE dealing with the City of Atlanta water dept employees, especially now that we’ve sued them).
In any event…glad this has a happy ending!